In many entities still, in-house IT applications are poorly integrated, for example, with disparate applications running on their own, even when there are commonalities in the data those applications use. In such cases, data updated by one application is usually imported to another application manually. For instance, an IT administrator may have to manually access data updated or used by one application and load on to another application.
Take for example, local or municipal government's IT applications used to support service delivery for the municipalities. Those applications typically aligned directly to the departmental structure, with application(s) covering only the tasks associated with a single department. However, services offered and provided to citizens often involve the work of many departments. Consider, for example, a parcel that has been recently renovated by its owners. The parcel owner applies for a building permit from the Building department. After the work has been completed and the Certificate of Occupancy has been issued, the Assessor's office must update the parcel details to reflect the renovations and initiate a parcel reassessment. The newly assessed value has to be updated in the tax system for calculation of the property tax liability. Finally, the property tax payments collected by the tax department are directly entered into the tax system, and must later be updated in and reconciled with the accounts of the Finance department's General Ledger. This example describes the complex interactions between four departments as part of the administration for parcel management services including the renovations, assessment and property tax processes.
In many cases, the departments all use distinct, nonintegrated, custom software programs to aid in their work. Additionally, departments may also use paper-based records and manual record-keeping. Municipalities may choose to pay for pair-wise integration between software applications or purchase pre-integrated software packages, especially for departments that share information frequently. Departments such as Police and Justice, Assessment and Tax, Personnel and Finance rely heavily on the sharing of information that is central to their work. The Police department may need to notify the Justice department of arrest and investigation details as input to current and future court cases. The Assessment department may need to periodically give the Tax department the tax roll, a listing of all taxable parcels, their current assessment values, and valid exemptions. The Personnel department (and/or individual departments) maintains information on employee pay rates, raises, benefits, and work hours. These factors are used to calculate semi-monthly pay to produce payroll checks.
Although municipalities have the choice to pay for integration between independent applications, the cost is usually prohibitive. Additionally, the association of IT applications to a single specific department can be a limiting factor for service offerings. The applications are not flexible to adapt to new needs, therefore the only way currently to have this information reflected in multiple department software is through constant manual transmission and inputting.